The Governor of Ekiti State, Ayodele Fayose, has asked the Federal Executive Council (FEC) to invoke Section 144 of the 1999 Constitution by declaring President Muhammadu Buhari incapable of continuing in office.

According to Punch, Fayose claimed that the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Presidency cabal were in a state of dilemma as to whether to bring President Muhammadu Buhari back to the country with his present state or leave him in London.

Section 144 (1) says, “The President or Vice-President shall cease to hold office, if –
(a) by a resolution passed by two-third majority of all the members of the executive council of the Federation, it is declared that the President or Vice-President is incapable of discharging the functions of his office; and

(b) the declaration is verified, after such medical examination as may be necessary, by a medical panel established under subsection (4) of this section in its report to the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives.

(2) Where the medical panel certifies in the report that in its opinion the President or Vice-President is suffering from such infirmity of body or mind as renders him permanently incapable of discharging the functions of his office, a notice thereof signed by the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives shall be published in the Official Gazette of the Government of the Federation.

(3) The President or Vice-President shall cease to hold office as from the date of publication of the notice of the medical report pursuant to subsection (2) of this section.

(4) the medical panel to which this section relates shall be appointed by the President of the Senate and shall comprise five medical practitioners in Nigeria.

The governor recently told the media that the president had been on a life support since June 6 in a Westend London Hospital.

Fayose, in a statement issued on Monday by his Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka, insisted that Nigerians must be told the truth about the president’s state of health.

He said, “I told Nigerians then that President Buhari was black-market packaged by the APC cabal that was only interested in seizing power by whatever means and now, I have been vindicated.

“For a President who has spent 113 days abroad taking care of his health out of the 191 days in 2017, it is time for Section 144 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to be invoked.

“President Buhari left Nigeria for London on May 7, 2017, and today is July 10, 2017, 64 clears days since Nigerians saw their President or heard anything from him. Even the President’s handlers are keeping Nigerians in the dark.

“Even though the number of days that a president can spend outside the country is not specified in the 1999 Constitution (as amended), the makers of the laws of Nigeria envisaged this kind of situation and made provisions for how to resolve it in Section 144.

“It has, therefore, become pertinent that the Federal Executive Council must invoke Section 144 of the 1999 Constitution by passing a resolution declaring that President Buhari is incapable of discharging the functions of his office.”

Fayose, however, maintained that he was interested in the President’s death.